Registered sex offender plays Santa

Dec. 5, 2012: A city recently held a Christmas parade and one of the men hired to play Santa Claus is a registered sex offender. Mary Benton reports.

CLEVELAND, Texas -

The city of Cleveland recently held a Christmas parade and it turns out that one of the two men playing Santa Claus is a registered sex offender.

"The city of Cleveland received information from a citizen regarding the volunteer," the city manager said. "The city is reviewing this information and the police department is assisting in this review. Action is being taken to prevent this from happening in the future."

Parents who attended the event, known as Hometown Cleveland, said they were outraged.

"He should have not been anywhere close to kids," mother Rene Enloe said. "I don't think he should have been in the parade where children were."

The police department declined to release the name of the man. They said the offense occurred when the man was a juvenile, so those records are sealed. He is required to register as a sex offender, but he does not have a requirement to stay away from children, officials said.

"I don't want anyone with a background like that even holding my child, much less talking to him or anything like that," mother Ashley Trahan said.

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